1. Field of Art
This invention pertains in general to computer security and in particular to protecting private information.
2. Description of the Related Art
The typical internet user generally has many different internet profiles to manage. Authentication to gain access to these internet profiles normally is achieved with a username and password. It is well known that users tend to select weak passwords to gain access to internet accounts associated with these profiles. Additionally, protecting access to the internet profiles becomes more difficult as users typically tend to use the same username and/or password for all their internet profiles, regardless of how sensitive the information is within the profiles.
For example, many internet users have accounts associated with publicly viewed websites, such as social networking websites. Publicly viewed websites typically display information to other users of the website so that users may contact one another or to associate themselves through common characteristics. For example, on a social networking website, users generally are encouraged to publicly display their electronic mail (e-mail) address for communication purposes. This results in many users unknowingly exposing part of the authentication mechanism used to protect private accounts that store sensitive private information, such as a user's bank account. Hence, users' private accounts are vulnerable to access from malicious users who are not intended to have access to sensitive private information within the private accounts.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method to prevent users from exposing private information associated with private accounts on publicly accessed web sites.